Writing can be like a dance of dog and child, to see who can track in the most mud.—Charlotte Bacon

Charlotte Bacon is an acclaimed author and teacher. Her novels include A Private State, Lost Geography, There Is Room for You, Split Estate, and The Twisted Thread (Hyperion/Voice, 2011).

This quote, printed in the May/June 2004 newsletter of the New Hampshire Writers’ Project, comes from Bacon’s keynote address at the 2004 Writers’ Day Conference. She was, at that time, an associate professor of English at UNH, where she won an award for excellence in teaching. This article about the award describes her teaching style and includes some of the writing prompts she used with her students.

In 2007 she and her husband moved to Bali with their kids to start a school, an experience she writes about in a New York Times essay, “Lessons from a Year in Bali.” If you like to teach or travel or both, you might enjoy this piece.

It’s probably over the top for me to include a thirty-minute video in a simple quote-of-the-week feature, but I discovered this program on New Hampshire Public Television, and I couldn’t resist. Rebecca Rule, who is a fine fiction writer and a well-known Yankee humorist, asks Bacon about material for fiction, process, technique, practice, and lots more. If you don’t have time right now, bookmark this page and come back to it later, especially if you write fiction. Bring a cup of tea, put your feet up, and enjoy.

See more quotes about writing here.